How Would the Pound Perform in the Final Days of 2015?

Welcome to our report of the final days’ of trading for 2015. With no trading on New Year’s Day, we have another short week to cover, yet it was not a dull one, as you are about to see.

An overview of the currency markets for December 28th – January 1st 2015/2016

After the festive break, the British pound stood at 1.4910 against the US dollar on Monday morning. The first two days didn’t go its way though, as the pound fell back to 1.4799 on Tuesday night. Fortunately, the news for the next two days was rather better, as the clock counted down to the New Year. By the time trading ended on the final day of 2015, the pound was worth 1.4833. This was still much lower than the starting rate had been, but at least some of those early losses had been clawed back.

Could we say something similar about the state of the pound versus the euro though? Here we had seen a couple of low weeks for the pound, so from a starting rate of 1.3620, it’s time to see what happened next. The pattern followed the one we had seen against the dollar, in actual fact. The initial two days were poor, taking the pound down to 1.3512. However, the next two days, taking us up to New Year’s Eve, were a lot better. In fact, the pound managed to finish the year on 1.3624 – just marginally higher than it had begun the week.

We had a reasonable result, finally, against the euro. Could we do the same against the Hong Kong dollar as well? Here the pound began trading on 11.556 before going for the familiar pattern of two bad days and two good ones. This took the pound to a low point for the week of 11.469 on Tuesday night. It then spent the next two days trying to recoup those losses. Unfortunately, it only managed to get back up to 11.496. This left it 0.06 lower than it had been to start the week.

Over in New Zealand, the pound began trading on 2.1863 on Monday morning. Once again, the pattern we had by now become familiar with for the week came into force again. The lowest rate was therefore seen to occur on Tuesday, as the pound fell back to 2.1551. While the pound did manage to climb back as high as 2.1694 by the end of New Year’s Eve, this was still some way behind the opening rate we had begun with initially.

With such a clear pattern coming to the fore throughout the week, it would be foolhardy to assume anything different would happen in Australia. In actual fact, we did get something completely different – unfortunately, it would not go in our favour. Instead, we ended up dropping steadily in value over the four days. From an opening rate of 2.0531 on Monday, the pound finished the year on 2.0297 on Thursday evening.

Notable events in the world of currency

Another drop, this time against the Canadian dollar

There was bad news here too, as the pound fell from a starting rate of 2.0679 this week, dropping to 2.0595 by the time trading was over.

Good news – finally – against the Swiss franc

Surely there had to be some good news somewhere, and it came against the Swiss franc. A marginal improvement from 1.4718 to 1.4762 was seen across the week.

But back to another drop – this time against the Icelandic krona

The good news couldn’t last, and this time the pound dropped from 192.807 to 191.731 against the krona.

So it was then that the British pound finished the year on something of a bad note. You could call it a damp squib, certainly, but perhaps the most important question is whether or not the pound will start the New Year in better shape. Only time will tell, and we will have a full trading week to explore in our next report in order to get some answers.